Switching between subjective and objective modes is the essence of the scientific modus operandi. Not many people seem to appreciate that. Science is all about riding two horses, maybe not in concert, but certainly alternately - and knowing when to switch from one to the other.

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Late addition ( Dec 4 ): De Ciseri's "Deposition of Christ" (1883). Was this post-crucifixion scene from the synoptic gospels, featuring the sheet of "fine linen" purchased by Joseph of Arimathea, the inspiration for medieval fabrication of a whole-body analogue of the fabled 'Veil of Veronica', imagined as a sweat/blood imprint, the one we now call the Shroud of Turin?

Plus ça change - a modern-day body bag. (Leaving the face exposed in the De Ciseri painting above was of course artistic licence).

Late addition (Dec 4). Why assume that the Turin so-called "Shroud" is or was intended as a burial shroud, when the biblical account in the three synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark and Luke) states clearly that body of Jesus was removed from the cross, placed into a sheet of linen supplied by Joseph of Arimathea, and then taken to the tomb? There is nothing there to indicate that the linen was intended as the final burial shroud, and indeed, when one reads the fourth gospel account (John) which mentions Joseph of Arimathea, but not his linen, the scene has moved on to the tomb, and it's now Nicodemus who is making the preparations for interment, and doing so using "winding" linen that is used to incorporate spices and ointments.So it's just as likely, if not more so, that the Turin Shroud, whether "authentic", or as this blogger believes "non-authentic" (a cunningly contrived medieval scam), is in fact Joseph of Arimathea's linen, used as a stretcher or body bag, bearing a blood and sweat imprint (probably simulated, not real) of both upper and lower body surfaces. It cannot be called a burial shroud if there's a real possibility that its intended function was otherwise, and if indeed as seems probable it had been removed by Nicodemus or Joseph of Arimathea and replaced with a more specialized funeral garment or 'winding' (see the image from the Hungarian Pray manuscript below showing arguably both J of A's 'stretcher/body bag' under the body AND the winding strips in readiness.

Starting point of original posting: This blogger/retired scientist has grown somewhat weary of arguing a case in detail, only to see "lite" versions appear on other sites, naming no names, that others read and misunderstand (for a typical ridicule-laden example see the appendix below).One has better things to do with one's time than be constantly re-stating one's case, trying to correct misunderstandings that are NOT of one's own making.

Repeat: the TS was intended to be seen as an ancient sweat imprint on linen. No, not an actual sweat imprint, as I was at pains to point out, but a SIMULATED, i.e. imitation sweat imprint, an imagined sweat imprint, a fanciful reconstruction of how a whole body sweat imprint (with liberal additions of blood too) might look some 13 centuries afterwards if "suddenly" unearthed from goodness knows where and immediately placed on public display.

How was the 'sweat imprint' manufactured? Answer: almost certainly as a faint contact scorch from a heated 3D metal statue and/or bas relief, accounting for the 'negative' image and 3D properties, but that's just a detail. The takeaway message is that the TS image was a SIMULATED sweat imprint, a larger version of the much venerated Veil of Veronica (the latter having probably served as the inspiration for fabricating the TS to represent as a sweat and blood derived whole body imprint).

But was it really a BURIAL shroud that was represented in that ingenious thought experiment?

Well, I've now developed that narrative a bit further, but rather than set out lengthy arguments and reasoning here, just to see my mission to explain come to naught, I'll adopt a two step procedure.

Please be content for now with another new claim: the so-called Turin Shroud was never intended to represent the final burial shroud. It was a makeshift body bag used to transport Jesus from the cross to his final resting place, the rock tomb. It was simply to provide a dignified transport of a blood and sweat-soaked victim pending the final washing and anointing prior to final burial, probably in WINDING sheets.It was the body bag that received the sweat and blood imprint, NOT the final burial shroud enclosing a washed, anointed, perfumed body.

I shall now take my time in composing the next posting. It will explain how these latest ideas came about. The Lirey Pilgrim's badge played a key role in that thinking. There will even be a new explanation for what Ian Wilson described as the "blood belt".

The TS image in sweat and blood was on the up-and-over BODY BAG, not the final burial shroud.

Late addition: see the latest posting (Dec 4) on my other site for a continuation of the theme, mainly in pictures:

APPENDIX 1 : what the NT has to says on the "linen": Matthew, Chapter 28:

57. When the even was come, there cam a rich man of Arimathea, named Joseph, who also himself was Jesus' disciple.
58. He went to Pilate and begged the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded to body to be delivered.
59. And when Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth.
60. And laid it in his own new tomb, which he had hewn out in the rock: and he rolled a great stone to the door of the sepulchre and departed.

There is no evidence there that the linen cloth was intended to be used as the final burial shroud. Indeed, it's clear it was intended primarily for transporting body from cross to tomb. One is not entitled to assume that a sheet of linen used to transport a bloodied body then doubled as the final burial shroud, implying there was no cleaning of the body. How likely was that? Why would the Marys bring ointments etc the next day, unless it was intended to first wash the body - and then remove it from the soiled 'body bag' prior to wrapping in fresh clean sheets?

Mark, Chapter 15

43 Joseph of Arimathea, an honorable counsellor, which also waited for the kingdom of God, came, and went in boldly unto Pilate, and craved the body of Jesus.
44. And Pilate marvelled if he were already dead: and calling unto him, the centurion, he asked him whether he had been any while dead.
45. And when he knew it of the centurion, he gave the body to Joseph.
46.And he bought fine linen, and took him down, and wrapped him in the linen, and laid him in a sepulchre which was hewn out of a rock, and rolled a stone unto the door of the sepulchre.
47. And Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses beheld where he was laid.

How likely is it that a length of cloth used to transport a bloodied body from the site of execution would double as final burial shroud?

Luke, Chapter 23

50 And, behold ,there was a man named Joseph, a counsellor and he was a good man and a just:

51... etc etc
52. This man went unto Pilate and begged the body of Jesus.
53. And he took it down, and wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a sepulchre that was hewn in stone, wherein never man before was laid.
54. And that day was the preparation, and the sabbath drew on.
55. And the women also, which came with him from Galilee, followed after and beheld the sepulchre, and how his body was laid.
56. And they returned, and prepared spices and ointments; and rested the sabbath day, according to the commandment.

John, Chapter 19

38. And after this, Joseph of Arimathea, being a disciple of Jesus, but secretly for fear of the Jews, besought Pilate that he might take away the body of Jesus: and Pilate gave him leave. He came therefore, and took the body of Jesus.
39. And there came also Nicodemus (which at the first came to Jesus by night) and brought a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pound weight.
40. Then took they the body of Jesus, and wound it in linen clothes with the spices, as the manner is it of Jews to bury.

Observe there is no indication as to what was used to transport Jesus to the tomb. While the "clothes" used to "wind" Jesus are described as linen, it seems fairly certain they used new material, different from that (unspecified) material used for transport. Might this be the source of confusion - the reference to linen used in two different contexts, one for transport in Matthew, Mark and Luke, and another different linen in John used for the final "winding".Matthew, Mark and Luke describe a linen 'body bag' - unlikely to be used as burial shroud. John describes a linen burial shroud, with no indication as to what preceded it, if anything, as body bag.

APPENDIX 2:

New angle on that much over-hyped Hungarian Pray Codex: might that be Jesus on an opened-out body bag in the upper picture, with the replacement snake-like linen for winding in readiness?

APPENDIX 3:

Here's an example of what is allowed to appear elsewhere, laden with scorn and ridicule, with no attempt on the blog owner's part to intervene, correcting false impressions created by his own sketchy reporting, lacking crucial detail.

Why human sweat cannot produce a Shroud like imprint
Sweat is composed mainly of water with dissolved minerals lactate and urea.
It’s a fact that sweat glands have an uneven distribution in human skin,
and the composition and quantity of produced sweat by a human depends
on several factors.
Leaving aside speculations,, if we assume the corpse wrapped in the
Shroud had profuse sweating before death, then almost all skin surface
would be covered by sweat, and the uneven distibution of sweat glands in
dermal structure would not matter., even hair would be soaked with
sweat (unless it had been washed…)
Question 1- Is there any sweat chemical compound that reacts whith
the polysaccharide layer involving linen fibers(Rogers theory) or pectin
and hemicellulose of primary cell wall?
Perhaps lactate? urea?-
If so does it produce the same color tone?
AS FAR AS I KNOW THIS HAS NEVER BEEN ACHIEVED IN LABORATORY EXPERIMENTS
Question 2- From a microscopical point of view IF sweat was
responsible for color change of fibers, as a fluid it is, it would soak
the fabric and probably there would be coloration on the other side of
the cloth, and besides, contrary to what is observed on the Shroud there
would be a continuum of colored fibers in «image» áreas ( I mean at
microscopical level there would not be colored fibers and uncolored
fibers side by side..)
The question of superficial fiber coloration at thread level would not be fulfilled either.
Question 3- A sweat imprint on cloth would be by defenition a contact
imprint, ON THE CONTRARY THE SHROUD IMAGE IS NOT(al least in several
anatomical áreas) A CONTACT IMAGE.
Question 4- If it would be possible to wrap a naked human body with
its skin covered with sweat in a linen sheet with the aim of obtaining
an image, the result would be as follows
(assuming that a color change would occur independently of the time elapsed to get it..)
It would be a contact-only blurred image, with different macroscopic
and microscopic characteristics relative to Shroud image let alone the
fact it would have no 3D encoding.
SWEAT THEORY HAS ALREADY BEEN DISPROVED, let’s not waste time speculating on old fashion and out of date issues,
regards
Antero de Frias Moreira
Centro Português de Sindonologia

Appendix 4

I never imagined for one moment that I was the first to propose the 'body bag' hypothesis, in view of the Gospel accounts making clear that 'fine linen' was used for immediate transport from cross to tomb. And here's a comment from David Mo that includes a French quote (my italics) making precisely the same point. My immediate response follows:

Wilson concurs with this as a possible explanation: "Although this
may have been a me re chin band, it implies a more substantial piece of linen,
and an alternative interpretation is that it could have been the Shroud we know
today. The root meaning of sudarion is sweat cloth, and the Shroud may
have been intended as a temporary wrapping to soak up the sweat and blood from
the body prior to a more definitive burial, which would have taken place after
the Passover Sabbath."

It was not a sweat imprint, and here’s why:
As the Wiki says, “there is no doubt that there was an image
displayed in Rome in the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries
which was known as the Veil of Veronica. The history is, however,
PROBLEMATIC.” Nowhere can you reliably document that the image was a
sweat-print. The only inspection: in 1907 in St. Peter’s when Jesuit
art historian Joseph Wilpert inspected the image, he saw only a piece
of light-colored material, faded, with two faint rust-brown stains. On
the contrary, all the medieval paintings of the Veronica intended to
show an actual colored portrait of Christ’s face (miraculously
imprinted, they thought) and were not portrayals of a sweat-print,
leading any honest analyst to conclude that the Veronica was originally a
PAINTING. Even the common medieval “rube” would have known that a
face-print is not created from someone rubbing the sweat and blood off
of a man’s face–only a messy blob. Therefore, anyone, cleric, artist,
common-man, would have supposed the Veronica was a miraculous image and
not a sweat imprint.

My answer (posted here only) : let's not get hung up on what substances comprised the Veil of Veronica as it existed in the 14th century. If as I suggest it was used as a model for simulating the burial shroud (or body bag) of Christ, it may be those artisans did not know either. But they could have fallen back on the legend of the Veil, which we're told did not really get going till the 14th century, namely that there was a wiping of sweat and blood from the face of Jesus, that there was a momentary "imprint" of his face, blotchy or otherwise, and what happens then is a matter for conjecture (and artistic licence). It's the concept that matters, namely that a contact image can be made from the body to cloth. Image enhancement is a secondary consideration.

The thing we have to keep uppermost in our minds is that we have an alleged burial shroud that carries not only the blood of the deceased, blood being a bodily fluid, but a negative imprint too that is faint yellow.If there's one bodily fluid, why not another? The most obvious candidate for an imprinting fluid has to be sweat, especially as it accompanies exertion and trauma. What's more we have a reasonable precedent for that in the Veil of Veronica provided one does not get bogged down in all the secondary artistic or miraculous add-ons.

A negative image, as per Turin Shroud, is most unusual, and cries out for a rationale. A putative sweat imprint provides the rationale. Frances de Sales in 1614 regarded the TS as an image comprising blood AND sweat.

Appendix 7

Comment from Thomas on shroudstory.com, Thursday 4th December and my reply

Pleased to hear it Thomas. But have you considered the
implications? Imprinting onto a linen sheet used immediately after
‘taking down’ generates an entirely different narrative (or possible
narratives) than imprinting much later onto the same sheet or a
replacement one. It’s not an area I’m not keen to get into, having said
many moons ago that much of what has been written re ‘re- bleeding’
from old wounds, ‘unclotting’ , etc by this or that mechanism
(fibrinolysis, serum exudates of retracted blood clots etc) strikes me
as counter-intuitive, indeed credulity-stretching. None of those
complicated some might say contrived scenarios are needed if the
imprinting occurs, whether 1st or 14th century, from a real or simulated
corpse in which the wounds are still relatively fresh. But all
of that overlooks the elephant in the room – the time constraints
imposed on imprinting of a secondary body image. If the TS is J of A’s
linen sheet, then who’s to say it was not replaced with something else
(like Nicodemus’s linen) prior to imprinting of body image by
supernatural processes? Who’s to say that medieval hoaxers had no
intention of “modelling” a supernatural imprinting of body image – and
were content to propose a Veronica-like imprinting of sweat as well as
blood onto the transport linen en route to the tomb?
I may be totally wrong re imprinting mechanisms, but am sure about
one thing: the biblical record simply does not justify the description
Turin “Shroud” if there’s no evidence that the sheet of linen was ever
intended to be used as the final burial shroud. It should be re-named
the Turin Linen, or maybe “Turin Imprint”, leaving open the possibility
of it being a larger post-mortem analogue of the pre-mortem Veil of
Veronica. Any miracle would be less to do with ‘resurrection
-imprinting’ than morphing of a sweat-imprint into a negative image of a
recognizable human being.

Appendix 8

Second comment from Thomas on shroudstory.com (different thread) and my reply:

Seeing this reminded me of the abrasion we see on Christ’s right cheek on the shroud. What chance of this on a bas relief?
It’s a level of detail one would really not expect to see in a 14th century “fake”

How can you describe what you see (yellow pointer?) as an
“abrasion” Thomas, when it’s indistinguishable in character from
surrounding body image?

All one can say surely is that it’s an asymmetry in the facial
features, one that cannot be readily explained without knowing the
precise mechanism of image imprinting (which was definitely not
photography).

Appendix 9 (needed to make a point elsewhere)

Notice a faint reverse-side image? It's an artefact - the filtered light (red) is being back-reflected from the white background through the interstices of the weave.The 'reverse side image' largely disappears when the fabric is placed on a matt black surface.

Appendix 10

and here are the steps that lead from template to 3D-enhanced image that I shall proceed to post to the current discussion on shroudstory.com (for Todds delectation especially, as he seems impressed by what can be accomplished by simple scorch technology and ImageJ):

1. Thermal imprint from brass crucifix onto linen with damp underlay.

2. Close up of thermal imprint (cropped from above picture, with loss of feet).

3. Simple tone reversal in ImageJ (use Edit Invert).

4. After 3D rendering and flipping left/right in ImageJ for easier comparison with initial template.

Appendix 12

Appendix 13:

Appendix 14:

Appendix 15

For the attention of Charles Freeman.Were you aware Charles that the original Stonehenge was painted in patriotic colours? Unfortunately, owing to the depredations of time, the pigments have all detached and the fallout swept away by westerly gales. All we are left with now is that drab grey stone. Pity.Btw: it's also rumoured that they ran out of white paint and left the job unfinished. Either that, or they got bored and went off to the Stone Shifters Arms for a jar or two of the local scrumpy, and were never seen or heard of again.

Monday, November 24, 2014

"The faint yellow Shroud body image was almost certainly an attempt
to simulate a sweat imprint on linen, as if from a recently crucified
man. In reality it was probably a thermal imprint ("scorch mark") from a
heated 3D or bas relief template."

This blogger's solution (above) to the Shroud of Turin 'mystery' as been deemed by Wikipedia's editors to fall within its prohibited categories of "personal promotion" and "conflict of interest".

Since when has it been wiki's policy to suppress latest new thinking on a subject that has:

(e) is shortly (early 2015) to be the subject of yet another Shroud Exposition in Turin to be attended and blessed by Pope Francis. He will no doubt refer to the Shroud in Vatican code as the "Holy Shroud"or "Icon" while stopping short of claiming it to be the genuine burial shroud of Jesus of Nazareth (hardly possible one might think in view of the radiocarbon dating, 1260-1390, albeit hotly disputed ).See previous posting for details.

What you see above is an image that was inserted into that post yesterday. It provides a flavour of how this blogsite and its retired scientist owner operates, and has done so for the last 250 or so postings, here and on a specialist Shroud website. Modus operandi? Doing and reporting experiments to test the claims and/or assumptions made on behalf of Shroud authenticity, experiments and results I might add you will find nowhere else.

And what was it that prompted the experimental modus operandi on my sites, the concluding and overarching IDEA which wikipedia does not wish you to know about? It is in fact that very same headline above that appeared in December 2011 in the Independent: "Scientists say Turin Shroud is supernatural", one which quickly led to my first Shroud-related posting on this site.

Yes, it described and experiment AND phenomenon that you will find nowhere else ("thermostencilling") but there was a subtext too for the "miraculous radiation" school of physics, namely: no absorbing pigment, or no chromophore, i.e. white linen, then NO IMAGE IS POSSIBLE. (First Law of Photochemistry). Coherent ultraviolet light from excimer lasers is irrelevant pseudo-science.

But it's vanity, all vanity needess to say, innit?, or what wiki calls "personal promotion", and wanting the world via wiki to know about my ideas demonstrates a clear "conflict of interest". Oh purleese!

Wiki has gone mad, bandying around such derogatory terms when it probably knows nothing about this site, its owner and his modus operandi in which all results deemed important are accompanied by photographs. (Could STURP claim the same?) I repeat. WIKI HAS GONE MAD.

15:00 Apologies for suggesting earlier that this blogger/retired science bod was the only one checking out the claims (experimentally) of the authenticists. Here's this progress report from Hugh Farey, checking out STURP's Raymond N. Roger's claim that the TS image could have been formed by a Maillard reaction between putrefaction vapours from the dead body of Jesus and the carbohydrates or the alleged starchy 'impurity coating' of the linen shroud. Hugh was using dead, decomposing mice as a model (rather him than me). My bolding of that crucial passage in the text...

in response to Dan:
Colin
Berry tells us, I’ve been misunderstood. I did not claim that the Turin Shroud image was an
actual sweat imprint – only that is was made to SEEM like a sweat imprint. Got
it? I thought I had. And I thought most of us had. But: As the comments on
other Shroud sites, to […]

All very true, daveb. I used two samples of linen, each divided into four
15cm x 30cm sheets, folded over in half over two thawed rats of the kind called
fuzzies (bred for herpetologists). They were all placed in an incubator at 23°C
for 7 days. The four sheets were soaked in a 10% dextrin solution, a 10%
sapinin solution, a mixture of the two, and nothing (as a control).

I did not consider red heifers, radon, or varying the magnetic field. Nor am I
likely to. I didn’t check the humidity (dry), but it did occur to me that I
might have had a result had I periodically misted the sheets.

Essentially the animals themselves were not the crucial part of the
experiment. Either cadaverine, putrescine, urea, ammonia, or any other
suggested vapour discolours cellulose, dextrin, saponin, myrhh, or some other
suggested textile soak or it doesn’t. So far, in my experience, it doesn’t,
although I agree that there are plenty of possible permutations not yet
explored.

I’m not sure what Louis’ point is, unless it is about a possible miracle
(defined as an occurrence outside physical laws). As I have said before, such a
possibility cannot be wholly discounted, but is both impossible to prove and
beyond the competence of science to test for, so I must exclude it from any of
my considerations.

Don't give up just yet, Hugh. Negative results, as you know, play just as important a role in scientific hypothesis-testing as positive ones, indeed more so.

Yes, I've taken a leaf from Charles Freeman's book, and submitted a brief synopsis of my 'simulated sweat imprint' idea to wikipedia. Charles sent his to the History of the Shroud page, but noting there was now a version of the same at the end of the main Shroud of Turin entry under "Recent Developments" I chose the latter for entering this:

Update: The following appeared briefly, but has now disappeared. No doubt I failed the audition. Never mind. We'll try again another day.

Shroud researcher Colin Berry (mentioned earlier) has recently made a
significant modification to his belief that the body image was
imprinted onto linen as a scorch from a heated template. He had
originally speculated that the scorch technology had been chosen
deliberately to represent either Templar Grand Master Jacques de Molay
or Geoffroi de Charney midway through being slowly-roasted to death at
the stake in Paris, with a fanciful imprinting of hot tissue onto a
burial shroud. In that view the de Molay image was later‘re-invented’ as
that of the crucified Jesus by additions of blood at the appropriate
wound locations described in the New Testament accounts.The Templar link has now been abandoned. While Berry still considers
the TS image to be a contact scorch, he proposes that it was intended to
be seen by the very first cohorts of pilgrims at Lirey in 1357 as the
genuine sweat (and blood) imprint left on linen by the recumbent
crucified Jesus. In other words, the scorch technology was designed to
simulate the appearance of an ancient sweat imprint, yellowed with age.
That interpretation may have found a resonance with mid-14th century
pilgrims, given that the highly venerated Veil of Veronica had been
attracting large numbers at the same time, notably in the ‘Holy Year’
1350, just 7 years prior to the first known Lirey display. The
‘Veronica’ too, according to legend, was initially a body imprint,
solely of the facial features of Jesus, captured onto a bystander’s veil
as she stepped forward in a charitable gesture to wipe sweat and blood
from the face of Jesus as the latter passed by, bearing his cross to the
site of execution at Calvary. Might this idea of sweat/blood imprinting
have served as the inspiration for a medieval ‘thought experiment’
combining art and technology, imagining how a similar whole body
imprint, both frontal and dorsal sides, of the recently deceased and
traumatized (bloodied/sweat-soaked) Jesus might look after 13 centuries
of ageing and yellowing?Links to Berry's 'simulated sweat imprint' hypothesishttp://shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.wordpress.com/2014/11/17/the-shroud-of-turin-probably-not-miraculous-just-a-simulated-sweat-imprint-a-triumph-of-medieval-joined-up-thinking/http://colinb-sciencebuzz.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/checklist-of-reasons-for-thinking-turin.htmlEdit contributed by Colin Berry, Nov 23, 2014

Hopefully someone will be able to review and edit it soon, if deemed suitable, and even assist with inserting numbered references into text

Update: 10:25

Tried re-submitting my screed, but this time logging into wiki, which had fortunately remembered me from a long time ago, attempting to edit something or other (non-TS related).

My piece now appears like an old-fashioned ticker tape/ telegram at the end of the Recent Developments section, and I'm still none the wiser about how to format in wiki.

Update: 12:38

Was gradually getting my screed to appear in standard font, more by trial and error than anything else, when this message appeared:

November 2014

Hello, I'm McGeddon. I noticed that you made a change to an article, Shroud of Turin, but you didn't provide a reliable source. It's been removed and archived in the page history for now, but if you'd like to include a citation and re-add it, please do so! If you need guidance on referencing, please see the referencing for beginners tutorial, or if you think I made a mistake, you can leave me a message on my talk page. Blogs are not reliable sources. You also shouldn't be writing about your own work in Wikipedia, per WP:COISELF.McGeddon (talk) 12:30, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

OK, McGeddon, receiving you loud and clear. Yes, you're right: blogs are not reliable sources, and no, I shouldn't be writing about my own work. But if I don't, then who will? Why not provide a list of accredited editors to whom one can submit one's ideas for possible inclusion? Maybe that directory exists already, but for now I'll take a break from the Byzantine complexity of wiki. At least folk will in time know what I think ought to be seen in wiki - given I've supplied an easy-to-grasp perspective that may or may not be right, but took close on 3 years, much original experimentation with the scorch hypothesis and 250 or so blog postings to communicate, most of those picked up in the wider blogosphere. There are blogs and there are blogs...

13:30 Halleluja. That summary of my current position now looks approximately right.

How long it remains on view is anyone's guess. As I say, it should by rights be on view, being at least as valid - if not more so - than most of the other ideas that circulate in the world of shroudology.

"The Shroud of Turin image depicts a simulated sweat and blood imprint on linen of the crucified Jesus. The Shroud of Turin is a medieval fake". Just 26 words... No risk of sensory overload there.

14:00 Ideas are, needless to say, the academic's stock-in-trade. Without those ideas one might as well collect antiques or play golf or bridge. If one generates an idea that has occurred to no one else previously, then the important thing for the academic is to waste no time in establishing priority. Idea that are left lying around, with no obvious owner, can all too often be hoovered up by others!

Here's a rough-and-ready way of doing that, establishing priority that is, simply by entering (shroud turin sweat imprint) into Google, and finding one's own postings dominate the returns.

Narcissism? Maybe, but I see it as an expression of the competitive spirit (same as that golf, bridge etc).

14:20 The wiki entry has now disappeared into cyberspace. It will be back, sooner or later, such is the nature of ideas (previously compared with genies that escape from bottles). I'm a patient man. I can wait. This science bod has lots of other interests in the world of ideas. New unconventional ideas take a while to bed in.

14:50 Here's the wiki page on editorial interventions and revisions:

"Self promotion"? They don't mince their words, do they? Who are these people?

17:53 A few days ago I was saying that scorching off a heated template, like a brass crucifix, gave scarcely any so-called lateral ("wrap-around ") distortion, and while suggesting a reason for that did not provide any supporting data.

I've just done a comparison between imprinting off the heated crucifix, and imprinting off the same crucifix that has been coated in a sticky paint-like food stuff. The results confirm my hunch - the second of those shows serious wrap-around distortion, unlike the contact scorch.

Left: brass crucifix coated in "paint". Right: imprint left by coated crucifix on linen. Centre: a scorch imprint from the crucifix. Note the much greater lateral distortion of the paint image than the scorch.

Reasons? Almost certainly to do with the greater tendency for "paint" to stick to linen, even at oblique angles round the sides, than for scorching to occur at those same locations where the cloth is not square on to the template.

Relevance to the "simulated sweat imprint" hypothesis? Quite a lot perhaps. Our medieval "shroud" forgers , deciding to create a sweat imprint on cloth may have originally experimented with liquid, pasty or tarry substances designed to simulate sweat imprints, but quickly found there was unacceptable lateral distortion. Then someone had the idea of scorching onto fabric, and found the distortion was then scarcely apparent for the reasons mentioned.

This blogger's initial thinking was that the TS image had to be a contact scorch, simply to accommodate so many of the Shroud characteristics, notably yellow colour, negative image, superficiality, and 3D properties especially. But might there have been a special reason for employing scorch technology? That led to the idea that the initial image was that of a semi-roasted Templar, a memento of events occurring in 1314 with the burning, or rather slow-roasting at the stake in Paris. Once the idea of simulating a sweat imprint occurred to this blogger, there was no longer any need to make a link with the Templars. The scorch technology was chosen as the simplest way to simulate a sweat imprint. Note that the scorch hypothesis has not been modified in any practical sense - merely the reasons for it having been deployed. The contact scorch was simply a simulated sweat imprint. What could be simpler than that?

in response to Dan:
Shall this
become the future of the Shroud of Turin entries in Wikipedia,
where every person with an idea posts his own theory out there? What about the
guy in Australia who has discovered
that if he tilts his laptop screen at a certain angle he can make Jesus’s eyes
open, thus proving he is […]

I, for one, can hardly complain if Colin wishes to provide material to the
Wikipedia site but I have provided a link to an article that was published in a
respected history journal and which has, according to the Editor, had 20,000
hits. The article was read by expert advisers at my request and I assume, from
the two month delay after I submitted the article to History Today before
acceptance, peer- reviewed by their advisory committee. It is entirely up to
the editor of the Wikipedia article ,of course, but might I suggest that Colin
provides some evidence that he has academic support for his theories or we will
have Stephen Jones joining in too.

What I wrote for wiki was not a theory. It was a simple all-embracing idea that explains HOW the TS image was made, i.e. as a thermal imprint on linen, and WHY it was made, i.e. to simulate a sweat imprint.

Note that it's an idea, an hypothesis. Hypotheses are there to be tested, not only by me, but others too.

There is no need for my IDEA to go to peer-review. It is JUST AN IDEA (and I happen to think a good one, though I say it myself).

19:30 An hour or two ago, I had been toying with the idea of pointing out the inconsistency of wiki editing, pointing out that my name had previously appeared in the 'Shroud of Turin' entry for observations that supported the scorch hypothesis - namely that the 1532 scorch marks showed 3D properties. That was accompanied by two references to my BLOGS, not peer-reviewed work. I now discover that someone has deleted me from the wiki page, along with the new submission, presumably to forestall the charge of inconsistency. Meanwhile 'anti-scorch' references remain, ones that also rely on non-peer reviewed work. Had I engaged in "self-promotion" to get that initial mention? Nope. It's my ideas I promote, not "me". But I wouldn't expect the blue-pencil censorship mentality to know that. I wouldn't expect the blue-pencil censorship mentality to know much at all about real people and the real world, in or out of academe.

I made a decision some years ago to avoid the activist side of wiki - so no writing new entries or (with one lapse of resolution, the attempt to correct existing ones. I'm hugely relieved now I did so. What a jungle! What a platform for control freakery, for over-blown egos!

23:20

My miffed response to some of the feedback via wiki's "Talk" facility:

Note the term "hypothesis", meaning idea. So where's the conflict of
interest in expressing an idea? Where's the self-promotion in expressing
an idea? Why bandy around these silly terms in a way that totally
misrepresents this researcher's interest in the Shroud? Are you aware
that I have published over 250 postings on my science buzz and
specialist Shroud sites, many with original research findings you will
not find elsewhere? As for deleting the earlier reference to my scorch
findings that someone else, not I, chose to publicize, that is just
small-mindedness.

My IDEA is any original one, as you can check for yourself by
googling, that can be expressed in a few words, and which does not need
"peer review" to which incidentally I am no stranger:

The faint yellow Shroud body image was almost certainly an attempt
to simulate a sweat imprint on linen, as if from a recently crucified
man. In reality it was probably a thermal imprint ("scorch mark") from a
heated 3D or bas relief template.

Do you not consider that folk who consult wiki have a right to be
informed of the latest thinking? Do you not understand the difference
between hypotheses that invite further experimentation and tendentious
claims?Colinsberry (talk) 23:07, 23 November 2014 (UTC)

1. Lank hair.No
attempt to image real “hair”, merely the imprint that might be left by sweat migrating out of hair of a recumbent subject (capillary action etc).

2. Blood: it was never intended to look like real thick blood - just an anaemic wishy-washy version
thereof, as if sweat had migrated by capillary action through dried blood clots (i.e.the linen acting like 'blotting-paper').

3. No sides to body: gravity would make sweat descend, or ascend via capillary action, so no imprinting of side image onto linen, especially if there were limited physical contact with sides.

4. Cut-off at sides of face. As 3: the sides of the face are vertical, not horizontal.

5. No imaging of top of head:: as 3 and 4: vertical, not horizontal.

6. No imaging of woundsand scourge marks (only blood flows therefrom) – as mentioned in earlier post. Sweat
would not issue from a wound, so there can be no “sweat imprint” of a wound,
only a blood imprint.

It was probably this legendary incident on the road to Calvary that led to the idea of fabricating a double full-length version of the celebrated 'Veil of Veronica', albeit of Christ shortly after crucifixion, imprinted onto his linen burial shroud.

More anomalies?? Feel free to suggest ones I've omitted.

Will flesh-out later on some of the listed items, the blood aspect especially, contrasting with pro-authenticity modelling' ("serum exudate of retracted blood clots" etc).

Notre Dame Cathedral Paris: completed 1345 (12 years before the first recorded appearance of another complex artefact (smaller, 2D, but with cryptic 3D properties) in a humble village called Lirey, see below, south of Troyes, also in France)

Modern day Lirey (Google Street view). The 19th century church on the right stands on the same plot as the humbler 14th century one founded by the de Charny/de Vergy family, first known home of the Turin Shroud in Europe, displayed to public in 1357, commemorated by the Lirey Pilgrim's badge, now in Cluny Museum. The building on left is the 'pigeonnier' (English: pigeon loft) referred to on another website as also being located on the original De Charny landholding. Further reading

Lirey church, with the pigeonnier visible on the left

The road sign points to Machy, just 5 minutes by car, where the 'Machy mould' for a second Lirey Pilgrim's badge was discovered by a jogger in a field

The Machy mould, with what I consider to be the addition of an extra feature, not on the Lirey badge, of a representation of the Veil of Veronica above the word SVAIRE i.e. SUAIRE, which can mean either shroud OR face cloth (lettering reversed, being a mould).

Details in close-up.

Monday 17th November

So might there be one of more features of the TS image that serve as a 'smoking gun' for the kind of methodology employed to produce a negative imprint of an entire man on linen, not necessarily from (imagined) "sweat", but probably as sweat?

It's somewhat conjectural at this stage, but my answer to that question would be "maybe", and it's based on a feature on the checklist in the posting immediately preceding this one.

Here's an image from a posting I did a year ago that highlights the problem faced by our medieval imprinter.

Imprint off brass crucifix obtained by LOTTO method (Linen On Top, Then Overlay)

There's been no imaging of the neck, leaving a 'floating' head on the image. It may be realistic, as a "simulated sweat imprint", but is somewhat unattractive, making the end-result look too much like the scorch imprint it is, not sufficiently like an imagined sweat imprint, maybe a little idealized and romanticized.

So what are the options for including the neck of the imprinting template, that do not introduce other unwanted features at the same time? Answer: few if any, one suspects. There was a price to be paid for imaging the neck: any run of linen that imaged the neck carried with it a penalty - the underside of the chin had to be imaged too, which looks unnatural on a 3D -> 2D transfer, and there was a risk in turning the linen through a sharp 90 degree angle at the tip of the chin.

But that price was deemed worth paying in order to maintain continuity of image between neck, chinand chest.

Oh well, nothing in this world is perfect...

This blogger has long expressed an interest in the anomalies of the chin/neck region, focusing initially on that transverse 'crease' which is clearly part of the body image, i.e. acquired at the same time as the body image.

Here's a listing (under construction) of previous postings on this 'smoking gun' topic.

in response to Thomas:
Thomas. Perhaps you should start by reading the three specialists that I
have quoted, Walker Bynum, Marrow and Hamburger, before you put forward your
own theories.They deal with the issues in detail after many years working with
the evidence. Marrow, in particular, shows how the changes relate to the new
emphasis on Old Testament texts.Then if you disagree with these authorities you
can,of course, explain why.
It is always good to start with the authorities, in particular as this field
has been extensively worked on. I remain amazed that Colin seems to be going
his own way without having started by consulting the many specialists working
on medieval painting. He may end up rejecting their work but he should at least
know about it before he goes public. Art historians today have to know a great
deal of chemistry as much depend on the analysis of pigments, so he will be
able to find people he can talk to. He needs to search out other faded cloths
for comparison with the Shroud – I know of two, mentioned in my article, and
there must be many more not on display anywhere so perhaps a conservation lab
dealing with medieval textiles might be the place to start. Certainly I am
hoping that my article helps find some to compare with the Shroud – sadly most
have decayed.
But perhaps the lure of going it alone is too strong for Colin.. I doubt,
however, even if he finds a new way of making images of which the Shroud is the
only example, it is going to revolutionise science in the way he suggests.

Apart from the fact that the TS BODY IMAGE does not fall within the realm of art history (blood additions might, if as I suspect they arrived AFTER body image, in which case they are best treated as a separate issue, and were influenced by artistic considerations) has Charles never asked himself this question: Why was the TS removed so quickly from public display after the first such occasion in recorded history, with the local clergy declaring it to be a CUNNING painting and a forgery. Given it would still have been a recently executed "painting" in 1357, before any fading and deterioration, why would it be described as a "cunning" anything, painting or otherwise, and why branded as a forgery, i.e. fake? The answer of course is that the TS BODY IMAGE is and never was a "painting" in the conventional or any other sense, because it's an IMPRINT, not a painting, and thus outside the remit of art history. The template that we have never seen may have been a legitimate subject for (3D) art history, but at present we don't even know whether it was bas relief, fully 3D, or a cobbled together combination of the two, e.g. bronze statue for the body, bas relief for the head.

Oh, and I'm not trying to revolutionize science. Quite the opposite in fact. I'm applying conventional science to the TS body image, thinking of ways a negative highly superficial image with 3D properties could have been made with those characteristics arriving willy nilly as an accidental byproduct of medieval technology. After some 3 years research and study, I think I have the answer. The aim was to simulate an imaginary sweat imprint as might be left by a traumatized recumbent man on linen. If the technology chosen to produce the pseudo-sweat imprint had been contact scorching from a heated 3D or semi-3D template, maybe with prior impregnation of linen to make it more receptive to thermal imaging, then the negative 3D properties are explained, given they can be produced at will in model systems, as this blogger has demonstrated in the course of some 250 postings since December 2011. How much of my work has Charles read? Or can he not be bothered with other people's scholarly research unless published in a reputable journal (or in Charles's case, a book or periodical)? As I've said before, science is the world of ideas. New scientific ideas, paradigm shifts especially) like my invitation to view the faint-from-the-word-go TS body image as a pseudo-sweat imprint of medieval manufacture, are like genies that escape easily from their bottles. I leave it to those with labs and modern facilities to get released genies back into new bottles. long enough at any rate for their merits and/or demerits to be judged. I'm only here for the science, and leave art history to art historians, assuming they are able to differentiate between art and technology.

09:45

Here's a crucial paragraph from Charles's History Today article.

No one has found any significant evidence of the Shroud’s existence
before 1355, when it appeared in a chapel at Lirey, in the diocese of
Troyes, supposedly advertised there as the burial shroud of Christ. Such
sudden appearances of cults were common in a Europe recovering from the
trauma of the Black Death. They caused a great deal of frustration for a
Church hierarchy anxious to preserve its own status. The bishop of
Troyes, Henry of Poitiers, whose responsibility it was to monitor such
claims in his diocese, investigated the shrine and reported that, not
only were the images painted on the cloth, but that he had actually
tracked down the painter. After this clerical onslaught, the Shroud was
hidden away for more than 30 years. Yet the Church accepted that it was
not a deliberate forgery and in January 1390 the (anti-)pope Clement VII
allowed its renewed exposure in Lirey. This suggests that the Shroud
may have been credited with unrecorded miracles, thereby acquiring the
spiritual status to make it worthy of veneration. Doubtless aware of the
earlier claims by the Lirey clergy, Clement insisted that it was
publicly announced before each exposition that this was NOT the burial
shroud of Christ.

The crucial omission note is the description of the TS image as having been "cunningly" painted, long before any obvious fading could have occurred. That omission, and the fact that a newly executed painting, no matter how "cunning" is unlikely to have been mistaken by the first cohorts of pilgrims for a genuine burial shroud makes it exceedingly unlikely that the early TS was seen as a conventional painting, even on historical and dare one say commonsensical grounds. Then there's the matter of the science. Charles seems determined to be seen as the Rip Van Winkle of Shroudology, someone who nodded off in 1978 just as the STURP team were packing their bags and equipment for the trip to Turin, and has only just recently woken up. ;-)
xxxxx

11:00: Have just this minute come across this during googling. It's an extract from a book called "The Templars and the Grail: Knights of the Quest" by Karen Ralls.

Don't be put off by the title. It's the reference to Veronica-relic fever at roughly the same time as the first display of the Shroud at Lirey that is especially interesting.

Might it have been the that display of the Veronica in 1350, described as the "Holy Year" just 7 years before the Lirey display that put the idea in somebody's head of trumping the Veronica with a bigger and better "sweat" imprint? How might that someone have set about simulating a sweat imprint, one wonders? Thinks: it has to be pale yellow or tan, it has to be highly superficial, and NOT look like paint, it has to be a negative image, it should have some "blood" in all the biblically-correct places as well as "sweat", it should be unmistakeable as a burial shroud, even if one has to take artistic liberties ...

12:10 It's now 8 months since I lasted posted to my specialist Shroud site* (not counting the short-lived 'strawshredder' offshoot) . Methinks it's time to update it with the firmed-up ideas re the TS as a carefully-crafted but simulated sweat imprint. That "holy year" 1350 - see above- would make as good a starting point as any, focusing initially on the then extant Veil of Veronica, and whether that much smaller piece of fabric was really a sweat imprint or not, and whether it was a genuine relic from AD33 or not. That would then set the scene for introducing the new paradigm, namely that the TS image was inspired by and derivative of the Veronica. The site could then be abandoned for a few more months, awaiting further ideas and developments, and continuing with this site as a day-to-day worksheet. However, as stated a couple of days ago, I shall no longer be reporting my experiments in real time. It seemed a good idea at the start but has proved to have too many downsides. Any results I get from experimenting with model systems will in future be used to shape or re-shape the central hypothesis, the focus now being on seeking evidence from the TS image that it was purposely designed to be seen as a (pseudo)sweat imprint, and less on the precise mechanism by which that goal was achieved (given that the scorch hypothesis already ticks numerous boxes, and given the poorly-documented basis for many of the labels on those boxes anyway as regards image location, image superficiality, microscopic aspects etc etc).

*59 visits today so far, though visits sadly do not translate into Google ranking, or if they do, they are a poor relation in the ranking algorithm.

Update November 21st. That Google ranking can be Page 13 or even Page 9 briefly under a (shroud of turin) search yet Page 26 a few hours later. That really says all one needs to know about the stability and quality control of the Google algorithm. I for one shall not waste another second with 'meegling my own content, since apart from being narcissistic, it's a TOTAL WASTE OF TIME AND ENERGY.

What has been far more valuable has been googling (shroud sweat imprint). Most of the first listed entries refer to my current thinking, arrived at circuitously some might think through initially following the scorch -> barbecued Templar route, and finally arriving at a 'scorch as simulated sweat imprint' conclusion, a considered view that is now setting rock hard in this sceptic's mind like concrete.

However, a chance finding in that list was a Google books link to Ian Wilson's "The Shroud" (2010) which has a few 'free sample' pages that would seem prescient, despite his final conclusions and take-away message being entirely the opposite of mine, namely that the TS image IS genuine. Why prescient? Sweat and sweat imprints still feature strongly in his view, though I have still to press the appropriate keys to acquire and read his entire book (which won't be a chore, if only for his enviable style of writing).

Having given his book a puff, I hope he and his publishers won't object to my posting here a screen grab of some of those free pages on view already.

That "conspiracy" term always carries connotations, faintly pejorative ones. What I'm proposing is not so much a conspiracy, more a confidence trick. Naturally the organizers need to keep things to themselves, but that's not quite the same as "conspiracy".

Saturday 22nd November

There's a new post gone up on shroudstory.com in which French-Canadian Yannick Clément ask when and why the TS image first became seen as one captured at the instant of Resurrection, as distinct from a natural phenomenon associated with enveloping a corpse in linen.

My answer - for what it's worth: it happened when certain "scientists" (I use the term loosely, since it's generally engineers dabbling in science) decided to dismiss natural causes or medieval forgery with indecent haste, and began to speculate on intense bursts of radiation, conveniently collimated so as not to require all the paraphernalia of lenses etc. But normal corpses don't emit radiation, do they? So it had to be supernatural radiation, and what better time to emit that supernatural radiation than during a process of dematerialization that we call Resurrection.

It's a completely circular argument, needless to say. It needed that supernatural 'resurrection' to generate the necessary and entirely hypothetical radiation (wavelength conveniently unspecified) and with it the image. But the image could "only" have been formed by radiation which therefore offers overwhelming evidence (or so we are told) of a supernatural event, i.e. Resurrection.

So, to summarize, the Resurrection provided the radiation, and the radiation formed the image, and the image could only have been formed by radiation, so there had to be a Resurrection to provide the radiation, which formed the image, which must have needed radiation, which must have come from Resurrection, which generated the radiation... oops, there's someone knocking at the door, must see who it is, back later...

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About Me

Colin Berry, aka sciencebod, is a retired PhD researcher/teacher/academic who has worked in industry, medical schools, schools, food and biomedical research (mainly in the UK, but also in W.Africa and the United States). He's best known for his work on RESISTANT STARCH, recently described as "the trendiest form of dietary fibre".
See also his specialist Shroud of Turin blog on www.shroudofturinwithoutallthehype.wordpress.com
with over 200 postings to date.

Create one's own blog (age, class, gender no barrier)

It's really quite straightforward. All one has to do is to click on the photograph with that nice young man. One can then be part of the frightfully interesting Blogger community in just a couple of jiffs.

Acknowledgment

What's the latest on the LHC?

LHC gets warning system upgrade : BBC 28 September 2009

Self-organization

From wiki entry on SELF ORGANIZATION: "As a result, processes considered part of thermodynamically open systems, such as biological processes that are constantly receiving, transforming and dissipating chemical energy (and even the earth itself which is constantly receiving and dissipating solar energy), can and do exhibit properties of self organization far from thermodynamic equilibrium."

How far away should your off-licence be for a bottle of wine to be energy-neutral?

What do these two have in common?

Answer: both arrived in this world about the same time. Sir Isaac Newton was born on 4th Jan 1643 (new style*). The Taj Mahal had a 20 year gestation period, centred on approximately the same year. Click on piccy for an older post .* Or Christmas Day, 1642, depending which dating system one uses.

Is interstellar space travel feasible?

The nearest star (more correctly, star system, since it's 3 stars, a binary and a smaller satellite star) is Alpha Centauri. The average distance from Earth is 4.3 light years. Suppose technology allows us one day to achieve an interstellar cruising speed of half the speed of light. A comfortable acceleration of g (simulating Earth's gravity) would take a year, with another year to slow down comfortably. The entire journey from Earth would take a minimum of 10 years approximately. Having arrived at one's destination, it would take 4.3 years to send a radio postcard (" Hello Mum and Dad. Have arrived safely, and am now looking for a habitable planet. Am hoping it's hiding behind Proxima. Have looked everywhere else... Would die for some Cheddar cheese... ")

Watch this space

It's a cheap and cheerful form of transcendental meditation.(experimenting with settings, actually)

What causes weather?

Could you answer that question in just 7 words, ie " weather is due to...? Need some help, " Weather is due to t- - u - - - - - - h - - - - - - o - t - - E- - - -'s s - - - - - - ." The National Curriculum (England and Wales) does have its uses, but there are many more such simple principles, expressed in a minimum of words, that could be usefully incorporated.

"Had there been a Beginning (there wasn't, as it happens), there would initially have been complete Nothingness. But just as Nature abhors a vacuum, it's totally gutted at the thought of Nothingness. I mean to say - how far does Nothingness extend, assuming it has one of more dimensions? It can't extend for an infinite distance, since that would be a physical impossibility. Nothingness, to avoid having infinite reach, coils up on itself to acquire finite dimensions. In so doing, it becomes Somethingness, which has a spring-like potential energy - the total energy in fact of the Universe.

From that potential energy, present in what we now call space, or space-time, which is anything but empty, is spawned all sub-atomic particles - both matter and antimatter. When those particles collide, they mutually annihilate to create photons.

The reverse can also happen under extreme conditions - two photons can collide to create matter and anti-matter. It is potential energy in the spring-coiled Universe that is our "Dark Energy. It may or may not have mass depending on conditions.

A moment when it has no mass is the instant of the Big Bang. Let me briefly explain. An oscillating universe switches between Big Bang and Big Crunch. With the latter gravitation pulls everything into a super blackhole which then becomes a singularity - a massively dense point in space-time.

What prevents it becoming infinitely small - a physical impossibility? Answer: friction. As the sub-atomic plasma contracts and grinds, heat is generated which cannot escape - being a black hole. The temperature rises, ie particles in the plasma move faster and faster. When they reach their maximum velocity - the speed of light- all particles are suddenly transformed into photons, which as we know have no true mass(at least, no rest mass: any mass they have is purely relativistic due to their speed).

Once the entire Universe is a super-concentration of photons, all the gravitational forces in the singularity collapse to zero, or nearly so, and the entire thing blows apart - a new Big Bang, to create yet another cycle (inflation, Big Crunch, implosion etc). The Big Bang creates not just sub-atomic particles - from photon-photon collisions, but space-time itself. To reiterate: that space-time is always suffused with the stored potential energy of our curled-up dimensions (Dark Energy)."